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Poisonous plastic? Trash Island? |
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Nacht
Queen of Darkness
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Joined: 25 Dec 2002 |
 Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 11:41 pm Post subject: Poisonous plastic? Trash Island? |
| PAUL GOETTLICH 16nov03 wrote: |
Avoiding Plastic
While it’s impossible to avoid all plastics, we must rid our diets and lives of this toxic material as much as possible. There is a huge amount of data confirming the migration of plastic monomers and additives in all steps of food processing.[44] And in my opinion and that of many top research scientists, it is only a matter of time and money spent on new studies before the harm is found. Because of corporate political campaign financing, meaningful regulations resulting from studies will take even longer to become law. We must protect our families while the obvious results trickle in.
I strongly advise individuals and governments to ban plastics wherever possible by utilizing the precautionary principal. The Wingspread Statement on the Precautionary Principle is the consensus statement of a conference in 1998. Simply put it states that if you have reasonable suspicion of harm coming from (plastic in this case) then you must stop it from happening; the burden of proof must be on industry, not consumers; alternatives must be fully explored before using a new material or technology; and any decisions regarding such activities must be "open, informed, and democratic" and "must include affected parties."[45]
Evidence of the negative health effects of plastics already exists in sufficient quantity to halt the use of it in contact with food. More importantly, I feel that the manufacture of plastic itself must be halted for a multitude of reasons. Besides causing an endless number of human deaths, disabilities, and diseases, plastic is clogging all habitats of the world and destroying the ecosystem. There is now 6 times more plastic than plankton floating around in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Plankton is a major food source for sea animals.[46] A large portion of it is preconsumer plastic that has not been made into a product yet. Called nurdels, they look very much like plankton in size and color. According to a paper by Arrigo et al in Geophysical Research Letters in October 2003, plankton production has been declining for the last 20 years with rising ocean surface temperatures. Along with increasing plastic quantities, the ratio of plastic to plankton is increasing, making it more of a target for hungry animals.
The researcher who found this, Captain Charles Moore, Director of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, told me that new data indicate that the ratio of plastic to zooplankton is even higher in two so-called floating plastic "Garbage Patches" that are each bigger than the State of Texas.[47], [48]
Nurdles are incorporated into all strata of the oceans with no known method of removal. DDE, a metabolite of DDT, and other dioxin-like chemicals concentrate on the surface of the plastic nurdles at a rate up to a million times that found in the ocean.[49] Captain Moore’s presentation includes images of sea animals that have suffocated and starved as a result. Even more startling is seeing plastic bits incorporated into the flesh of the sea animals.
Conclusion
I spent about two years answering telephone inquiries at an environmental organization in Berkeley. A great number of the callers asked what the safest plastic to use in contact with food or water is. They also wanted to know what the safest plastic is to microwave food in. My answer was that plastic should never contact food. And that one should never microwave food — it's probably as bad or worse than putting it in plastic because it creates free radicals in the food that damage cells in your body. It also heats the plastic, thus increasing the rate of migration into the food. That answer wasn’t popular with either the caller or the organization, which likes to point out positive alternatives. However, plastic is the alternative! And glass, wood, metal, and ceramics are the real things. Plastic is merely a foul imitation thereof. By using the least offensive plastic, one only prolongs and increases the toxic load on the Earth and in our bodies. If saving trees is your aim, stop using so much stuff. But in the mean time, don’t further degrade the environment with more plastic.
As consumers, we always look for ways to maintain the status quo of our modern lives. However, the only logic I can see in the regulation of food contact plastics is profit at the expense of our health, the economy, society, and environment. You needn’t be a polymer scientist to know that plastic shouldn’t contact food. What is essential though is a firm standing in reality and a good grip on logic. It also requires being free of ties to the industry before that logic becomes evident.
First set aside your assumptions and look at the known long- and short-term negative effects of plastic on health, economy, environment, and society, as well as the long-term viability of the human race. Next contrast that with what you find as benefits. I guarantee that the stack of chips will be far larger in the negative pile.
If one were to listen only to nonprofits and the industry, it would be natural to think that only the additives are toxic and migrate. But everything about plastics is toxic — both the additives and the base plastics. And both migrate in quantities that are problematic at extremely low concentrations. Some chemicals are obviously more so than others. But it is undeniable that they all migrate all the time into everything that they touch. |
view the entire article here:
http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Plasticizers/Out-Of-Diet-PG5nov03.htm
| Article in Pravda - Russian Online Publication wrote: |
Trash Island?
"Trash Island" discovered in the Pacific Ocean
Pravda 24feb04
Berlin, February 24th. An entire "island" composed of trash has been discovered in the Pacific Ocean. It is as large as the Central Europe.
According to the German magazine "Geo", plastic objects prevail among the trash. The "island" weights approximately three million tons in its entirety. This is six times greater than a number of natural plankton.
Scientists claim that the "island", situated between California and Hawaiian islands, forms circular ocean currents which now accumulate wastes by the shores of Japan and the US and bring it to the center of the Ocean. |
| Article on Greenpeace website wrote: |
Trash vortex explained
The trash vortex is one of the most studied areas of plastic accumulation in our oceans. At its maximum the area can reach the size of Texas. It is made up of everything from tiny pieces of plastic debris to large ghost nets lost by the fishing industry.
As trash swirls through the world’s oceans to a handful of vortexes like this, it leaves a trail of death and destruction along its path. Plastic is often mistaken for food and has been found inside marine life of all sizes, from whales to zooplankton. It has been directly blamed for the death of a wide range of animals including albatrosses and sea turtles. While massive trash like ghost nets can ensnare and trap thousands of creatures, there are concerns that even the smallest pieces of plastic may pose a problem , as plastic often accumulates in the digestive tract, many animals essentially choke on plastic intake. Others starve to death from a lack of nutrition despite a full stomach (such as Laysen Albatross chicks).
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Where does it all come from?
Only a small percentage of the trash found at sea is thought to originate there. So how does the rest of it make it out to sea? It comes from a variety of sources, from the litter you see on the streets to industrial waste. Every time it rains, pollution of all kinds washes from land into storm drains and rivers, eventually reaching the ocean. Once there, the long-lasting qualities of plastic mean that it remains in the ecosystem for decades (and potentially longer), and as more trash accumulates, our oceans and the inhabitants within them are facing a crisis.
During the year long Defending Our Oceans expedition, scientists and crew onboard the Esperanza have been sampling the world’s oceans to determine the impact and pervasiveness of plastic in the ocean environment. During this leg of the expedition, we will journey into the heart of the vortex, to assess... |
more info:
http://oceans.greenpeace.org/en/the-expedition/news/trashing-our-oceans |
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Al the DLOE
Director of Unpleasent Facts Dept.
Age: 43
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Joined: 05 Dec 2006 |
| Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2007 11:30 pm Post subject: |
technically nuclear waste is still natural but toxic as are cyanide and arsenic. if plastic is toxic it is only a matter of amount just as with anything in nature thus this whole argument is factually ignorant.
on another end of the toxic argument banning DDT has killed more people of yellow fever, malaria, and other mosquito based pathogens than actual have been saved since it controlled the pops in swamps. later research also disproved its threat to egg thickness in birds. the issue with it was more like that antibiotics, overuse without rotation.
i know that this will only frustrate you but i felt i should at least let out a peep for what my information lead to. |
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Graillik Tur
Renaissancetaku
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| Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 6:22 am Post subject: |
I'm sorry...I didn't make it past the first paragraph as it said "it is only a matter of time and money till we find something wrong here". That's just saying if we look hard enough, we'll find a reason to hate this. And that's just wrong. |
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Last edited by Graillik Tur on Tue May 01, 2007 4:41 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Doot
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| Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 9:19 am Post subject: |
I went through and formatted Nacht's post so it's a little easier to understand who authored the articles. |
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Nacht
Queen of Darkness
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| Posted: Mon May 07, 2007 12:11 am Post subject: |
thanks doot!
basically, there is an island of trash the size of texas in the ocean! this means all of the ocean-caught seafood we eat has also been eating this plastic... and that means that WE are eating it. you wouldn't eat a handful of plastic would you? |
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FawkesFyre
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| Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 1:16 pm Post subject: |
I'm not really clear on the finer details of this island but, I do like how they are recycling a lot of plastic and rubber to use as artifical habitats now in the ocean. They've done a lot to help coral reefs and sheltering sea life. |
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Godwyn
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| Posted: Wed May 09, 2007 1:43 am Post subject: |
I really do not see plastic as the problem, the problem seems to be pollution with plastic as the focus.
The island iseems beneficial in some ways; if plastic is naturally being drawn to specific locations in the ocean, seems as if it should be much simpler to clean it up should focus be brought to that. |
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